Paleo

How to spell paleo

5 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce paleo

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does paleo mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to a diet based on foods presumed to have been eaten by early humans, such as meat, fish, vegetables, and nuts, while avoiding grains and processed food.
2. adjectiveRelating to the remote prehistoric past, used as a short form referring to ancient eras such as the Paleolithic.

Paleo in a sentence

• She switched to a strict paleo diet to cut out grains and sugar.

• The museum's paleo gallery displays stone tools and cave-painting replicas.

• The cafe now lists several paleo breakfast options with eggs and avocado.

• Researchers studied paleo remains to date the earliest human settlements.

Where does paleo come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word is a modern clipping of the Greek-derived prefix paleo-, which comes from palaios, meaning 'ancient' or 'old'. In Greek that adjective described anything from a long-vanished age, and English scientists adopted it during the nineteenth century to build technical terms such as palaeontology, the study of ancient life, and palaeolithic, the 'old stone' age. The standalone word took on fresh life in the twenty-first century as the popular name for the so-called paleo diet, which claims to mimic the eating habits of pre-agricultural humans. The American spelling drops the older 'a', giving 'paleo', while traditional British scientific writing often keeps the digraph in 'palaeo'; that lingering 'ae' is exactly what trips up writers who learned both forms. The same palaios root also lies behind 'palaeography', the study of ancient handwriting.

How the word is built

• paleo- (from Greek palaios: ancient, old)